'Evenings in Olde Seville Square' opens 25th and final season with Pensacola Civic Band

PENSACOLA, Florida — One of the best loved and most anticipated of Pensacola’s musical traditions, “Evenings in Olde Seville Square” presented by the Pensacola Heritage Foundation, will kick off its 25th and final season on Thursday, May 17, with a concert by the Pensacola Civic Band.

The series will host concerts at 7 p.m. Thursdays through Aug. 2, weather permitting.

This year’s lineup includes many of the most popular groups, some of whom have performed at “Evenings in Olde Seville Square” on an annual basis over the last several years. Included will be Kitt Lough (May 24), the Reunion Band (June 14), Mr. Big and the Rhythm Sisters (June 28), Don Snowden’s Big Band with Holly Shelton (July 5), the Swinging Dick Tracys (July 26) and Clark & Company (Aug. 2).

“We are looking forward to having a great lineup once again,” says series coordinator Jim Green. “Unfortunately, unless someone else or some other organization can step forward to assume the presentation of ‘Evenings in Olde Seville Square,’ we are afraid this will be the last season.”

Pensacola Heritage Foundation members say the expense of presenting the series, even with sponsorships from local businesses, has grown to the point that it is diverting the foundation from its original mission of discovering and preserving Pensacola’s historical heritage.

“Most of the organization for the concerts, arranging the talent, courting sponsors and dealing with the hundreds and hundreds of details that always arise, falls on the shoulders of a few people,” Green says. “We just can’t do it any longer, and the Heritage Foundation really wants to return to focusing on its primary mission of identifying and preserving historic structures.”

Green says the foundation is willing to work with any prospective concert presenter regarding the equipment necessary to stage the series and to lend technical support. He estimated the cost of the concert series at $50,000 to $60,000 annually.

Here is the 2012 “Evenings in Olde Seville Square” schedule:

May 17, Pensacola Civic Band

May 24, Kitt Lough

May 31, Perdido Brass/Guffman Trio

June 7, Heritage

June 14, Reunion Band

June 21, 151 Army Band

June 28, Mr. Big and the Rhythm Sisters

July 5, Don Snowden’s Big Band with Holly Shelton

July 12, the Sawmill Band

July 19, Lisa Kelly/JB Scott Quintet

July 26, Swinging Dick Tracys

Aug. 2, Clark & Company.

“We’re going to do it up right, like we always have,” Green says. “We want families and friends to come out, bring a lawn chair or blanket, sit under the oak trees in Seville Square and enjoy themselves.

"The popcorn is going to be there. The food and drink are going to be there. The music and dancing are going to be there.”

The series was begun in 1987 by Jim Tanck, a foundation board member, and continued an earlier concert series that ran 1966-1972 in the heart of Pensacola’s Seville Square Historic District. The foundation has presented the weekly concert series for the past 24 years.

The concert series has grown into a community tradition and has remained extremely popular through the years, with crowds sometimes in excess of 10,000. Green and other Heritage Foundation members say they hope someone will step forward to continue the tradition.

“For a lot of folks, summer in Pensacola is about the beach, getting out on the water and spending Thursday evenings socializing, seeing your friends and listening to music in Seville Square,” he says.

“Since Jim (Tanck) started this, we have seen a renaissance around Seville Square with restaurants like Dharma Blue and Hub Stacey’s. It’s a great scene and we hope someone will continue it.”

The Pensacola Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization, has spearheaded historic preservation in Pensacola since 1964.

The organization was founded by Mary Turner Rule, one of the city’s first preservationists, who bought and restored the then-dilapidated Dorr House now owned by the University of West Florida.

The Foundation campaigned for the Gulf Islands National Seashore and was instrumental in the creation of the Historic Pensacola Preservation Board and the North Hill Historic District.

It also helped restore buildings in the Seville Square Historic District, including the Barkley House, which was its headquarters until 2004. Information, go to http://pensacolaheritage.org.